ABSTRACT
Better understanding and knowledge of fatigue behavior, especially fatigue crack growth in elastomeric compounds, are essential in order to improve service lifetimes of dynamically loaded rubber parts. In this study, fatigue crack growth tests have been performed on a styrene – butadiene rubber (commonly called SBR) using a dynamic testing machine METRAVIB DMA +1000 from ACOEM. These tests have been carried out following an experimental procedure based on three successive steps: accommodation, characterization (in order to determine the relation between the applied solicitation and the tearing energy) and crack propagation under fatigue. It brought to light that the viscoelastic response of rubber materials strongly influences their fatigue crack growth behavior. However, the impact of the frequency and temperature is quite complex to study due to self-heating and aging phenomena.
